ABSTRACT
The first example of the use of a Greek myth as a psychoanalytic model is the Oedipus complex. But it is clear that the model was initially a clinical one and only acquired its mythic dimension later when Sigmund Freud, on the basis of his self-analysis, turned to Sophocles for support. The advantage of taking well-established myths as mental models are that further enquiry into them is often helpful in producing a profitable line of enquiry in the clinical cases. The mythic stories of Dionysian celebrations are full of accounts of women driven mad by sex and alcohol, seen as sexually abandoned, unrestrained, and dangerous. Dionysius the god of fertility, sexual pleasure, and wine had fervent female followers. Dionysius was called the twice born, once out of his earthly mother Semele and once out of Zeus his father.
